“I like to operate in an ‘if it doesn’t say I can’t, I can’ mindset,” he says, grinning.
Finally, by late afternoon, everything’s set, and Rhys and I head back to the guesthouse and fall into bed together, exhausted.
“You must be so relieved,” I say.
“I won’t breathe completely easy till after it’s over…but I’m pretty sure I’m off the hook. Talk about under the wire.”
“It’s the wackiest solution ever. You’re a mad genius.”
“And you love it.”
“You know I do,” I say, putting my palm to his cheek, a day of scruff rough and delicious against my fingers.
He makes a sound that’s half sigh, half groan.
We make love again, and it’s slow and sweet until it isn’t, until it’s wild and unhinged and I’m telling him to fuck me like he means it, and he lasts three seconds after that, which is so hot—Rhys out of control—that I come with his fingers on my clit and his roar in my ear.
Then we talk.
“I still need to take this slow-ish,” I warn.
“I know,” he says.
“I’m not moving in with you or anything.”
“That’s fine,” he says. “I don’t have anywhere for you to move into.”
“I do,” I say. “But I’m not ready to issue an invitation.”
He laughs. “I don’t need one. I mean, maybe the occasional sleepover.”
That makes me smile. Look at us, right? “Oh, God, Rhys, ofcourse.More than occasional, probably. I’m not ready to let you leave—the bed or the room, I mean.”
He grins at that. “Yeah,” he says contentedly. “Why is sex like that?”
“Like…?”
“You know. Like with some people it’s just sex. And with the right person, it’s?—”
“Like holiday lights coming on in the dark,” I say.
“Ha. Yes. The old-fashioned, non-LED kind. With no bulbs missing.”
“When you get them seated in the tree right, so they’re distributed evenly and tucked back at different layers, so you get that all-over twinkle?—”
“This is the worst metaphorever,” he says. “I’m trying to say that I didn’t actually believe there was a whole other level, but what I feel with you is definitely a whole other level.”
I’m quiet, because my feelings are too big for the moment. “Yeah,” I say. “Me, too.”
“So, okay, no cohabitation for a while. Just sleepovers. Lots of sleepovers.”
“And maybe we never get married. We can be one of those couples that’s been together fifty years?—”
I realize what I’ve said.
He’s smirking at me. “Fifty years, huh?”
“I’m just saying, we could be together and there doesn’t have to be any lifetime commitment involved.”
